Today my old college roommate, Michael Barnes, was in town and came to visit and meet Jennifer and the girls. I recently got back in touch with Mike when he discovered Frenchville while doing a search for me on the Internet, but this was the first time I had seen him in thirteen years. After visiting for a bit and giving him a tour of the house we drove down and had dinner at Medieval Times. We caught up on old times while we ate chicken with our hands and watched knights fight one another. It was fun seeing him again and I wish him all the luck back in Oklahoma.
Monthly Archives: February 2005
Ugly Blue Walls
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Today was project day around the house. Jennifer continued taking down the wallpaper in our bathroom. This time it became serious as the tall ladder entered the house. Now we have these really ugly blue walls. This pretty much forces the issue on whether or not we are getting the inside of the house painted. 🙂 We either get it painted or I look at these horrible walls every morning.
My project was placing the toilet innards in our guest bathroom. The toilet has been running and running. We finally had to shut it off it was running so much. All the toilets in the house are slowly breaking down. I just fixed Abby’s toilet three weeks ago.
While playing around the house Emily thought it would be funny to use one of her doll’s strollers as a little car to ride in. We thought this was pretty funny and took a picture.
What Are We Going to Do?
Abby has been acting like a wild child lately. She’s been really hyper and jumping around and talking constantly. It’s like she’s hopped up on sugar, but she isn’t (we hope). Yesterday she wrapped a ribbon tape measure around one of our lamps and pull it off the side table, making it shatter on the ground. Today while I was watching her she couldn’t sit still for a minute.
Meanwhile, Emily has been the angel. She’s been cracking us up with what she does. Today she pointed at a picture of Santa Claus and said, “Ho Ho Ho”. I was like, okay, Christmas was two months ago, how do you know that now and not back then? She also has two very funny expressions that crack us up, and thus she continues to do them. She’ll go “Hummm” and have her fist balled up against her cheek with a poutty look on her face. The other one is she’ll put both hands on her cheeks and go, “What are we going to do?” Both very funny.
Jennifer has started peeling the wallpaper down out of our bathroom. The previous owners did a horrible job wall papering and we’ve always hated it. She finally could stand it no longer and started peeling. We’ve been toying with the idea of getting the house painted because my Employee Stock Purchase Plan money is about to arrive. I also like making the joke that Jennifer is “nesting” because she’s pregnant. So far with every child, she’s done some sort of house remodeling while pregnant.
The Cookie Debate
Hooray! I’m posting an entry two days in a row. Today Abby was off from school because of President’s Day, so Jennifer had set up a play date with a friend of Abby’s. When they arrived they were informed that everyone was sick, so they decided to go to the park instead.
Abby and Emily are getting quite funny together now that Emily is talking more. Today at the dinner table Abby wanted a cookie for desert and Emily was telling her no. The exchange went something like: “Mommie, can I have a cookie?” Emily would respond, “No cookie”. Abby would say “Yes” and then Emily would say “No”. This went back and forth until is escalated to screaming “Yes” and “No” at the top of their lungs and the parents had to step in and break it up.
Today’s picture is from Abby’s singing at church yesterday.
Working Too Hard to Post
Sorry it’s been over a week since my last entry. It’s been another busy week at work. Fortunately I’ve been able to do all of my work from home, but it still takes it’s toll when you are having to constantly think and do work. Even when I was my busiest last year while we were finalling Madden 2005, I had time for a small entry. This past week I haven’t even had time for that, if that explains how busy I’ve been. I’ll try to get better from here on out.
Enough about work, this morning I was woken up by Abby screaming “Sister is throwing up!” Emily has had a runny nose lately and apparently coughed once to many times and ended up gagging. Up came all the milk she had been drinking in the morning. Because Jennifer’s queasy due to the pregnancy, guess who got to do the honor of cleaning up the mess.
Because Emily wasn’t feeling well, she and I stayed at home while Jennifer and Abby went to church. Today Abby was singing in the choir. She was giving one of the small choir robes and stood in front of the church and sang. We’ve been working on her stage fright and she did very well. We had to bribe her with a trip to “Burger Cheese” in order to accomplish it, but hey, she wasn’t a crying mess, so that was a bonus.
All the Engineers One Can Handle
Another week that went by quick because I was so busy at work. I have found that our team is way too big for me to handle. Even with the number of people split amongst myself and the new Development Director, I still have sixteen software engineers that report to me. I’m working so hard on day-to-day problems, it’s hard to get to keep up with everyone’s schedule much less any long term planning that needs to be done. Looking at the work load it looks like six to ten engineers is the maximum number of people one should have to help. Beyond that, and you start losing issues and the product starts to suffer.
Tonight I met the girls at Quiznos for some dinner. Abby and Emily sat at a table all by themselves and ate their dinner. Emily has started talking a lot more. She’s started saying “Yes” instead of just nodding her head. She also says, “I’ll be right back” and holds up her index finger. Today’s picture is of Emily wearing her Dora the Explorer backpack. She’s started putting it on all by herself and walking around the house saying, “Let’s go”.
Getting Rid of the Body
Once again another busy week at work and at home. Jennifer has been working very hard at Hanna’s Closet, the consignment sale fund raiser for her mother’s group at church. The sale ended up selling $26,000 worth of merchandise, 40% of which will go to the church group. The other 60% goes back to the people who put the items into the sale. She had fun, but it was a lot of work and she’s glad it’s over with.
One of our fish died this week. I’m not sure if it was Nemo or Dory. After Abby left for school, I was asked to “get rid of the body” so that she wouldn’t notice. She actually did notice later on that afternoon when she got back from school. When she was told that the fish had died, she was very apologetic for feeding the fish too much the other day. We thought this was pretty funny, but told her that it wasn’t her fault.
We just got back from going over to the Meador’s house to watch the first half of the Super Bowl. Greg was my boss on Madden NFL 2005 and just recently left Tiburon as well. So, now my boss and my former boss have left. Both of whom are moving to Austin. What’s wrong with this picture?
Late Nights and Slumped Shoulders
It’s been a week since my last entry and boy has it been a busy week. As predicted, last week was pretty hectic at work. It was the end of our second milestone and I ended up working late every night. The last night I was there until 5:30 a.m. It’s funny now that I’m a manager, you would think I would have nothing to do and have no reason to be up there except for moral support, but our with our new Development Director’s help we are trying to get our schedule under control. Right now, it doesn’t look like it’s going to be settling down any time soon. I think if we could just get our schedule for the rest of the year nailed down we would be in a better position to take on the day-to-day problems. As it is now we are trying to do scheduling in the midsts of handling the day-to-day problems. Very difficult.
This weekend wasn’t very fun at home because Emily had a fever and kept throwing up. It’s never fun to have one of your kids sick. You can really tell when they aren’t feeling well because they stop acting the way they normally do. In the case of Emily, she would mope around with her shoulders slumped down and a pout on her face. Once the Tylenol would take effect, she was up and bouncing around again, but those times were few and far between.
Jennifer was busy Sunday and will be busy the rest of the week working on “Hanna’s Closet”. It’s a giant consignment sale of baby clothes, toys, and furniture that she’s been helping to set up at church. She will be up at church every day this week with the final sale on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.
Today’s picture is of Abby with her baby. She actually had me go get the camera to take this picture. She’s been telling me lately that she wants to be a “mommy” when she grows up instead of a “princess”.
Frenchville 